The United States embassy at Berlin, Germany, cabled $500 to Governor Sayers on September 17.
General J. B. Vinet, president of the Red Cross Society, State of Louisiana, New Orleans, received on Tuesday morning, September 18, a telegram from Miss Clara Barton, who was at Galveston, as follows:
“Find greatest immediate needs here are surgical dressings, usual medicines and delicacies for the sick. No epidemic, but many people are worn out with suffering and exertion who need tender care and proper food.
“CLARA BARTON.”
Building material was needed at Galveston but its delivery was necessarily slow, owing to the lack of rail communication with the mainland.
There were still many pitiable cases of destitution. Many half-demented persons positively refused to leave their wrecked homes and as persistently refused to accept offers of relief extended them. In several instances parents who had lost children still occupied ruins of their former home and the surroundings had brought them to a state of mental and physical collapse.
The number who had gone insane as a result of their experiences will probably never be known. In every lot of refugees sent out of the stricken city there were many insane men and women. The victims first made light of their losses, and laughed immoderately when telling of the death of relatives in the flood. It was a very short step from this to uncontrollable madness.
The state militia companies did splendid work in patrolling the city after the storm, and many of the men were of the belief that they should be allowed to return to their homes and troops sent from other parts of the state to fill their places.
The fears of an epidemic were allayed by the presence and the distribution of medicines and disinfectants and therefore a feature which would undoubtedly have had the effect of causing many to seek succor elsewhere, was eliminated from the situation.
GOVERNOR SAYERS SENDS HIS THANKS.